 | ||||||||
|
2018, Issue 2 (38). Abstracts
Measurement of Social Status in Experimental Games The majority of social and economic interactions take place between people of different social status. Age, position, income and other factors affect the way people evaluate their position in the society. We investigate how self-estimation of the social status is formed when an individual participates in an economic experimental game. In our experiment subjects are set in pairs and play consequently the dictator game, the trust game and the labor market (contract) game. After each game we measure their subjective socioeconomic status using two different scales. We show that participation in the dictator game affects the perception of one’s social status to the greatest extent: the status of dictators is higher than the status of recipients. Prescription of roles in other games does not have such an effect. Active behavior, gender, income, etc. also affect the subjective status. Key words: social status, game theory, dictator game, group behavior
A Note on St. Petersburg Paradox St. Petersburg paradox, formulated by N. Bernoulli in the early 18th century, led to defining the utility function (D. Bernoulli, G. Cramer) as a way to resolve the paradox and played an important role in the development of decision making theory. In the 20th century, the paradox attracted the attention of many researchers, including Nobel Prize winners P. Samuelson, R. Aumann, L. Shapley. N. Bernoulli assumed that payments grow exponentially with the coin toss number. The growth rate of payments is higher than the exponential one in the generalized St. Petersburg paradox. The utility functions of Bernoulli and Cramer don’t lead to the resolution of the paradox in this case. In 1934, K. Menger showed the necessity and sufficiency of the boundedness of the utility function for resolving of the generalized St. Petersburg paradox. A brief overview of the subject matter is given, as well as the autors’ approach to resolving the classical paradox, based on discounting cash flows, in which the time intervals between consecutive coin tossings play a special role. The adaptation of the proposed approach to the generalized St. Petersburg paradox is also described. The proposed approach is an alternative to the traditional based utility function. It allows to solve, in particular, the inverse problem: to find (ambiguous solution) the moments of possible payments according to the set sizes of payments, the force of interest and the price of the game. Key words: St. Petersburg paradox, discounting, Menger theorem
Modelling of Economic Oscillations of Shale Oil Production on the Basis of Analytical Solutions of a Differentiation Equation with a Retarded Argument Shale oil production is considered to be one of the important determinants of oil price slump in 2014—2016. According to some experts, shale oil became a new market “regulator”, ousted OPEC. Shale oil production is characterized by non-trivial dynamics. After an accelerated growth in 2010–2015, a period of fluctuations in production caused by the volatility of oil prices followed. The paper develops approach to the shale production modelling on the base of the analytical solutions of differential equation with retarded argument. The differential equation reflects the fact that production change consists of a sum of new debits and the natural process of base production decline. Besides, possibilities of origination and prerequisites of endogenous economic oscillations of shale oil production are studied. Calculations, implemented for economic and technological characteristics given for period from December 2014 to May 2017, showed a possibility of existence of oil production oscillation with period of 33 month, that does not contradict to observations. In general, the proposed approach can be used as a nonlinear structural method for forecasting oil production and corresponding price component, connected with production change. Key words: mathematical simulation, differential equation with retarded argument, oil production, shale oil, economic oscillation
A.M. Karminsky, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Negative Net Worth of Manufacturing Companies: Corporate Governance and Industry Expectations Transparent and effective corporate governance positively influences the financial stability of the company: it increases the investment attractiveness and reduces the cost of lending. For Russia, this problem is relatively new. And at the moment, corporate management in the manufacturing industry continues to be characterized by a high concentration of ownership and a combination of ownership and management functions. In this paper, using logistic regression we investigate the impact of corporate governance factors and sector expectations on a negative net worth of the companies in the period 2011—2015. The results showed, in particular, the probability of a negative company’s net worth is higher, the lower the index of business confidence in the industry; the presence of agency problem; the smaller the number of member in the board of directors; the higher concentration of ownership; and, if company is not privately owned or joint stock company. Robustness of the coefficients of the final specification was confirmed. Key words: manufacturing industry, negative net worth, probability of default, logistic regression, corporate governance, industry expectations
Fiscal Multipliers in Russia The paper covers theoretical and practical issues related to estimation of fiscal multipliers for the Russian economy that measure the response of output to the discretionary change in fiscal indicators. Analysis of the main determinants affecting the size of multipliers suggests relatively low values of fiscal multipliers in Russia. By means of a Structural Bayesian Autoregressive Model we obtain the multiplier for the overall government revenue and spending equal to -0,75 and 0,28 correspondingly, i.e. an increase in government revenue (spending) by 1 per cent of GDP leads to a decrease (increase) in output by 0,75 (0,28) per cent. In the case of government spending shock the maximum effect on output is in the subsequent quarter after the shock, while in the case of revenue shock the effect builds up quarter by quarter and reaches its peak in the eighth quarter. The results obtained are generally in line with the expectations as well as with the results available for the emerging market economies. Fiscal consolidation scheduled for the medium-term is expected to have negative impact on the output growth. However, since it is intended to be carried out mainly at the expense of the expenditure part of the budget, this should be less harmful for economic growth and could promote the efficiency of public spending. Key words: fiscal multipliers, general government revenue, general government spending, Russia, Structural BVAR
I.P. Glazyrina, Institute of Natural Resources, Ecology and Cryology SB RAS, Chita, Russia Transaction Costs and Problems in the Development of the Mineral and Raw-Material Base of the Resource Region The article examines the mechanism of cooperation between the state and the private investor in the process of development of mining sector of the region with a low level of developing the production infrastructure. Under this mechanism, the government provides assistance to the investor not only in infrastructure but also in the implementation of the required environmental protection measures. To assess the impact of transaction costs (TC) on the productivity of such cooperation from the point of view of efficiency of the dividing of natural resource rent authors design special tools on the basis of the model of Stackelberg. A model test site is constructed to demonstrate the capabilities of the approach. The actual data of the model test site capture the specificity of the modeled object and make possible a practical study of the properties of the Stackelberg equilibrium. The methodology is based on analyzing the sensitivity of the solutions of the corresponding bilevel Boolean programming problem to changes in the basic parameters of the model. To raise the efficiency of cooperation mechanism with rent-seeking investor and fair sharing of rent this article suggests some steps that can significantly improve state institutions and reduce the level of TC both for the state and a private investor. Key words: cooperation mechanisms of the state and investor, sharing of natural-resource rents, model of Stackelberg
P.A. Minakir, Economic Research Institute Far Eastern Branch Russian Academy of Sciences, Khabarovsk, Russia Far East Priority: Combinations of Investment and Institutes Trends and possibilities for implementing the state economic policy for the Russian Far East development are discussed. Historical overview is given with the identification of stages of regional development, characterizing by the different sources and scales of economic resources, in particular investments, and the types and degree of localization of specific economic institutions for the regional development. The duality of motivation for priority development of the region is shown. On the one hand, it is characterized by non-competitiveness in terms of standard market procedures. On the other hand, it has a high appraisal of utility in terms of national geo-strategic and geo-economic goals. A hypothesis is advanced that in this situation, priority economic development is possible only if an effective combination of scales and sources of investment resources is found with an adequate type of institutional regime for this purpose and with an optimal level of localization of institutions. Key words: Far East, investments, economic development, institutions, integration, priorities
The Desire to Speed up the Russian Far Eastern Economy: Will the “New” Institutional Conditions Help? Countries with a high share of natural rent in the economy and weak institutions, to which Russia belongs, are significantly limited in the choice of instruments for effective public policy instruments. Application of the half-century-old practice public intervention tools to speed up the Russian Far Eastern economy indicates existence of the "knowledge problem" of bureaucratic administration. As a result, additional risks may generate economy for the Russian Far Eastern due to the special zones. Very modest effects can also be obtained from the infrastructure construction at expense of public investments and from certain measures to attract and consolidate the population of the region. Key words: investment, infrastructure, development program, special zones, consolidation of the population, institutions, natural rent, the Russian Far East
Investment and Economic Growth: the Case of the Russian Far East The article describes the characteristics of investment processes in the Far East and their relationship with the dynamics of the macro-region’s gross product. Trends in investment dynamics are assessed with the identification of individual periods. The time-limited effect of investment multipliers is shown in connection with the concentration of investment flows in the resource-producing sectors of the regional economy and in the sector of large national infrastructure facilities’ construction. The investment function for the Far East is estimated on the basis of which it is shown that the accelerated development of the economy of the Far East (exceeding the national growth rate by about 1,5% per year) until 2025 will require an increase in the volume and rate of investment (while maintaining their structure). These amounts are not adequate to the real investment potential not only of the region and state budgets, but also of the interregional resource allocation system. Key words: investment, economic growth, Russian Far East, infrastructure, investment function
S.N. Naiden, Economic Research Institute Far Eastern Branch Russian Academy of Sciences, Khabarovsk, Russia Social Development in the Far East: Guardianship or Survival The national concept of “accelerated development of the Far East” declares the consolidation of population and the growth of human capital through the provision of attractive conditions and high living standards in the region. Together with the state investment into large pretentious projects in social sphere, the decrease of state support to public utilities sector in the region continues. Based on the comparative analysis of state and population expenses on public utilities, the author shows real consequences of changing the parameters of “communal guardianship” for the Far Eastern households’ budgets. The author concludes that decreasing the state guardianship in the public utilities sector forms a negative vector of migration mobility. At the same time ignoring the results of unified communal policy, which leads to the destruction of system of state guardianship of social sphere in the region, contradicts the spatially oriented socio-economic policy in the Russian East. Key words: housing and utilities, expenses on public utilities, household budgets, budgets of Russian Federal subjects, state guardianship, Far East
Economic Integration in East Asia: Challenges for the Russian Far East The foreign economic relations of the Russian Far East are oriented to the Asia- Pacific region in general and East Asia in particular due to its geographical proximity. Nowadays East Asia is one of the world politics centers and it shows high growth rates of GDP, trade and investment flows. The region is also characterized by active development of economic integration processes. At the same time, the Russian Far East can develop economic cooperation with regional partners only at the subnational level. FTA agreements and other forms of economic integration are the prerogative of the federal government. And the result of the Russian foreign economic policy in the region is very modest: it includes only APEC and Viet Nam — Eurasian Economic Union FTA. It should be mentioned that signing FTA agreements should not become the end purpose for Russia’s participation in the "integration game". Elimination of custom duties without integration of the Russian companies into global and regional production networks will increase trade flows, however, it will only reinforce the current role of Russia and its Far East as a supplier of natural resources to the region. Key words: international economic integration, free trade area (FTA), APR, East Asia, NEA, Russia, Russian Far East Back | ||
|